


Freedom In All Things

by SofterSoftest



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Batjokes, M/M, Multi, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25792597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SofterSoftest/pseuds/SofterSoftest
Summary: In order to become even closer to Jeremiah and Jerome, Bruce submits to insanity spray.
Relationships: Jeremiah Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Jeremiah Valeska/Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Jerome Valeska/Bruce Wayne, Joker (DCU)/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 14
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Neyiea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/gifts).



> While writing a certain letter to a certain someone, I had two ideas. This is one of the two. The other will be uploaded much later, depending on the speed of various mail carriers.

* * *

*

The warehouse Jerome picks is dim and empty.

It’s nestled by the rotting Southside docks, in a long line of grungy, abandoned buildings.

The day is grey and cold, like so many in Gotham, and Bruce thinks it could not be any more beautiful.

“You’ll be just like us, after,” Jeremiah murmurs lovingly, threading his bare fingers through Bruce’s curls. Even quiet as he is, his voice rumbles oddly in the barren space, bounces off the rusting walls at odd angles. “Just like us, Bruce. And then there won’t be anything in the whole world that could separate us.”

“I know that,” Bruce responds through a steadying sigh. “That’s why I want it.” With familiar rapidity, Bruce’s chest swells with warmth, and savage, desperate love. He stands expectantly between Jeremiah and Jerome - men who love him more than he could say, more than he could prove - and waits patiently to sacrifice his mind.

“And, after… I’ll understand better, too,” he says, remembering his losses, inflicted by the men before him - Alfred, Selina, the Manor. His family, his friends, his home. All gone. All so he could focus entirely on them. “I’ll understand…”

“You will,” Jeremiah agrees, pressing a kiss to the back of Bruce’s neck. “It’ll all be so clear to you. How much we love you. Why we’ve gone so far to prove it to you. How much further we’ll go still.”

Bruce’s stomach drops, that familiar reaction of dread, fear, and overwhelming love. At his sides, he balls his fists as if preparing for a fight.

“Jerome?” Bruce asks, voice tight with nerves.

“Almost ready, babydoll,” he murmurs, bottom lip bitten between his teeth as he glares at the little gun in his hands. He’s twisting a vial of violet liquid where the magazine would go, his hands working slow and careful. “Just gotta make sure this seal is tight. Don’t need either of us getting sprayed. Who knows where we’d be then, huh?”

Jerome winks at him and Bruce musters a laugh. His stomach is fluttering with a sick churn of anxiety and impatience.

“I’m still worried,” Bruce admits in a rush, feeling traitorous and absolved for his honesty. “I might not be  _ me  _ once this is over. What if I - what if I reject both of you? What if I become catatonic or paralyzed or evil? What if I  _ hurt  _ you?”

“We’ll be right here, Bruce,” Jeremiah embraces him from behind, arms winding tight around his waist. Jerome lowers the gun and comes to wrap his arms around Bruce’s neck in a familiar hold they have all grown accustomed to. Jeremiah hooks his chin over Bruce's left shoulder, Jerome over his right. Past reassurances repeat in Bruce’s mind as his fear subsides. He knows Jerome made this batch of insanity toxin just for him. He knows it will take longer to work, that it will not be so harsh, or so  _ abrupt _ . Not as painful, either. Even so… 

“We’ll never leave you, Bruce,” Jerome assures him. “Ever. If you went catatonic or  _ crazy _ -crazy, we’d take care of you or follow your lead. Simple. We’re not going anywhere.”

“Exactly,” Jeremiah agrees.

They kiss his cheeks at the same time and Bruce feels so adored and treasured and accepted, tears prick his eyes.

“Let’s go ahead then,” Bruce decides, voice strong. “Another moment we’re apart like this feels like a waste. I’m ready.”

“Alright, honey.” Jerome presses a quick kiss to his lips. Bruce could see the hunger in Jerome’s eyes, could feel Jeremiah’s lingering, strong touch at the back of his head. They were ready for this. Ready for him, and all the ways he would change. “Whatever you want.”

“Remember, Bruce, we’re right here,” Jeremiah says. “Whatever happens.”

“Be sure to step back,” Bruce warns as Jerome loads the gun with a final click. Behind him, Jeremiah laughs softly. “You’re concerned for us, even in the face of your oncoming insanity.”

“It’s true love,” Jerome says, voice genuine. “I’m sure you’ll keep that big ol’ heart of yours, Bruce. At least for us.”

“I couldn’t live without it,” Bruce murmurs softly. “Tell me you’ll move.”

“We’ll move,” the twins respond in unison. 

Jeremiah’s fingers slip from his head to rest, assuring and strong, on his shoulders. Before him, Jerome stands with his feet apart and his back braced, pointing the gun right between Bruce’s eyes.

There is a single moment of absolute silence.

Jerome nods at him, catching his eye with a familiar grin full of brazen confidence. “Seeya on the flipside, Brucie!”

He pulls the trigger.

A violet cloud engulfs him, burning his throat, stinging his eyes. With a single breath, Bruce feels his thoughts disappearing, his body buzzing, and by the time he draws his second breath, he is already sputtering. Laughter builds in his throat, raw and reedy. Joy and terror fumble in his chest. His heart flutters. He screws his eyes shut. With a lurch, he pitches forward, knees hitting concrete, shaking, laughing so hard he can barely breathe - 

“Wait,” comes Jerome’s voice, sounding very far away. “ _ Wait _ , Jeremiah.”

The buzzing in his body has turned inwards, spreading through him like a shot of alcohol. Bruce feels only warmth and bliss in various, wild extremes. His fear is fading fast, without even an imprint, as if it had never existed.

“It’s - ” Bruce sputters, tears sliding down his cheeks, already aching from the force of his grin. A violent, compulsive wave of giggling overtakes him, and he fights his way through it to spit, “It’s like  _ freedom _ .”

“Go,” Jerome hisses. Two pairs of hands find him instantly, touching him so gently, cradling him so close.

“We know,” they say together. “That’s exactly how it’s supposed to feel.”

“Sh-should’ve done this sooner,” Bruce jokes, even as he snorts and writhes with the force of his laughter.

“Hush,” Jeremiah scolds him. “You’ll bite your tongue.”

“Pretty baby,” Jerome croons, gazing down at him with wonderment as he pets the damp hair from Bruce’s forehead. “Pretty, pretty boy. So willing to lose his mind just for us.”

“What a gift,” Jeremiah agrees, the very same wonderment thick in his voice.

They stay kneeling on the concrete, holding Bruce as he thrashes, as his vision dims and flickers, as his mind splits messily down its middle. He laughs until his muscles tear, laughs until he cannot breathe.

As Bruce’s mind breaks, he lies flat on his back in the empty warehouse. The concrete floor is cool against his skin. Through faulty, failing eyes, he gazes up at two blurry faces who gaze right back. He laughs so hard he cries, tears dripping into his ears. He laughs so hard he chips a tooth. He laughs so hard he nearly vomits. And still, Jeremiah and Jerome watch him obsessively, offering soothing touches and murmured assurances as they drink in his reactions. Their hands find his cheeks and he holds them there, threading their fingers to clutch like duel lifelines.

“I’m so lucky,” Bruce rasps through the painful, bloody grit of his throat. “I love you both so much.”

“Oh, Bruce,” they murmur, voices blending. “Oh, Bruce.”

Time twists and splinters. Red blossoms behind his eyes like his veins have burst. His heart is full and rapid and so heavy it hurts.

Sanity bends to love - 

And Bruce Wayne unravels. 

*

* * *


	2. TWO

* * *

They take him to Wayne Manor. 

It is empty and dim as the warehouse, silent as a mausoleum. Even as Jerome and Jeremiah clutch Bruce in their arms, carrying him bridal-style across the threshold, he senses that he is home and feels nothing at all. 

That, already, is different. Weak and tired and  _ changed  _ as he is, Wayne Manor feels noticeably strange. As if the familial ties that had bound him to the property have severed. As if the long halls of barren rooms and silence that had weighed on him, pressing in with loneliness, didn’t bother him quite so much anymore. 

They carry him up the wide staircase, murmuring soft things Bruce cannot quite comprehend.

“The Manor feels different,” he murmurs, interrupting Jeremiah who was speaking softly, carrying the lower half of him.

Jerome snickers and Bruce can feel the vibration of it against his cheek, yet he cannot quite summon the energy to smile.

“Everything’s gonna feel different for a bit, babydoll,” Jerome murmurs softly. “But you’ll get used to it.”

“In no time,” Jeremiah adds.

They take him to his bedroom, placing him very gently beneath the covers.

“I don’t need to sleep,” Bruce protests, reaching for them as they step away. “I want -  _ you _ . Both of you.”

“We’ll be right here,” Jeremiah soothes him. “But you do need to rest.”

“You should see yourself, Brucie. You’re handsome as ever and all that, but you look exhausted. It’s, uh, kinda hot…”

Jerome starts to reach for him and Bruce’s heart squeezes with anticipation, but Jeremiah slaps his brother’s hands away, hissing, “ _ Later _ . Look at him. Just a quick nap, darling, and then we’ll take care of you.”

“ _ Fine _ ,” Bruce snaps, frustrated and unnerved in equal measure. He turns to face the wall so he cannot see them, and is asleep before they step away.

It takes him several days to recover. 

Bruce sleeps between cycles of wild, uncontrollable laughter. Jerome and Jeremiah stay with him through it all, keeping him from clawing at his face or ripping his hair out or biting his fingernails bloody. 

“I suppose it makes sense,” he hears Jeremiah say in a brief moment of lucidity. A hand strokes his cheek, the barest brush of leather. “He had a lot of mind to lose."

Another time, he wakes briefly to find Jerome in bed with him. He looks pale and unkempt from sleep, and meets Bruce's questioning look with, "We're taking shifts."

"Oh," Bruce says, though he cannot find the energy to move. His entire body feels heavy and strained, his throat raw and his tongue bitten and sore. A few moments of silence pass, Jerome gazing at him with comfortable, familiar adoration. 

"I don't feel insane," Bruce whispers, a confession, already drifting.

"Of course you don't," Jerome responds just as softly. "And you never will."

He sleeps.

Some time later, Bruce wakes to the sound of Jeremiah’s voice. It is unmistakable in its familiarity and intimacy. Bruce could hear the tail end of a spoken word, a whisper, a sigh, and know without any doubt that it was Jeremiah closeby. 

Of course, he loves Jerome’s rough, rusty growl. But Jeremiah's voice soothes him in a way he cannot quite describe, soft as a finger trailing down his spine. Bruce rolls towards him, squinting through sleep.

“ - be perfect. And mostly painless, too."

“Mostly?” Jerome’s voice echoes, softly tunneled from down the hall. “What do you mean  _ mostly  _ \- ” 

“J’miah,” Bruce grumbles, reaching blindly. “C’mere.”

Jeremiah is kneeling by his side in an instant. He grasps his hand between violet gloves, and Bruce peels one off without asking, hooking two fingers beneath the seam at his wrist and yanking hard enough to scratch. 

"Touch me," Bruce demands, crawling from the bed to tangle his arms around Jeremiah's neck. He leans his weight forward until they tumble backwards to the floor. "Touch me, please, please - "

Jerome walks in as Jeremiah kisses him. "You started without me? If Bruce wasn't out of his mind, I'd be offended."

“Join us,” Bruce demands, pulling away from Jeremiah’s brilliant, vibrant mouth. “Always room for you, Jerome. Always - ”

Bruce cuts himself off with a gasp as Jeremiah flips them, pressing Bruce to the floor. No further touches come, no kisses or caresses or whispered, honeyed words of devotion. Bruce leans up, searching, yet Jeremiah’s bare hand encircles his throat and pushes him roughly back down. Jerome walks calmly to the center of the room, staring down his nose to where Bruce is pinned. Both men wear similar expressions of muted desire and studious interest, studying Bruce as he squirms and reaches and whines. 

One hand encircles Jerome’s ankle while the other links around Jeremiah’s wrist, pressing close enough to feel his metered pulsepoint. “Can’t we have some fun? Why aren't you - loving me?"

"How do you feel, Bruce?" Jerome asks, clinical distance to his tone.

Confused, he gazes between Jeremiah and Jerome, eyes flickering, wondering what he has missed. Surely, something has changed. Surely, something has gone wrong. Again, one more reaction that does not feel quite right - the idea of calamity no longer fills him with panic and action. His mind does not spin through a long list of names and faces of those closest to him, wondering which one might be in danger.

“I’m fine,” he responds, though it sounds like a question. Wordlessly, he squeezes Jeremiah’s wrist, hoping to convey his desperation, his confusion, and is instead distracted by sharp pain racing up his fingertips. Bruce gasps softly, more in surprise than pain.

Scuffs cover his hands in odd churns of color - black earth, violet bruise, red crust of blood. Several broken fingernails still bleed beneath careful bandages. It is only then that Bruce realizes he is hurting. His body aches. His muscles are sore from strain. Both Jerome and Jeremiah look similarly unkempt. Long, bloody scratches lace their arms between their own blotched bruises. Dirt streaks their clothes and clots their hair.

As demanding as when he had first awoken, Bruce asks, “What happened?”

“You don’t recall?” Jeremiah asks. There’s an impersonal formality to his voice that Bruce has only ever heard when tormenting others - mostly officers of the GCPD, especially Jim Gordon. Careful. Controlled. 

“Obviously not.”

Beside them, Jerome squats, peering down with eyes heavy as sin. Jeremiah and Jerome don’t look at one another, though an idea seems to pass through them, fine and invisible as electricity. 

“You went a little nuts on us, Bruce,” Jerome eventually says, casual tone betrayed by the serious flint to his eyes. “You slipped away a couple hours ago and high-tailed it to the old cemetery. You found your family mausoleum.”

With more tenderness, Jeremiah adds softly, “We got there just before you could open the caskets.”

They let that sink in, and he can almost remember it. 

He has been inside his family mausoleum only a handful of times, always accompanied by Alfred, and never for very long. It was a beautiful space, all pale marble and stained glass windows reinforced with steel. Outside, there grew bushes of his mother’s favorite roses, growing thick and tall until lonely Gothamites passed by. His parents’ final resting place had taken on a reverential, folklorish quality for the city. Residents would visit the cemetery to pluck Martha Wayne’s roses, to break off pieces of marble from the pillars and walls, to collect whatever tokens mourners might have left behind. Bruce remembers Alfred explaining this to him, how the mausoleum might look a bit more brittle every time he visited because the people of Gotham wanted a bit of that Wayne luck. A rose to smell or a stone to worry in one’s pocket, to give them an ideal to strive for or a bit of that green, green wealth.

He was used to his family site being slowly, steadily desecrated. Though never before had he expected the cause to be himself. 

Bruce waits for a flood of emotions that do not come. Internally, there is an assumption of what he should feel - shock, disgust, shame, fear - and yet there is nothing. He feels no obligation to his parents, long dead and buried and gone, nor their mausoleum. Only logical -  _ what next, what next, what next? _ He feels changed internally. Relieved. Made better by the absence of duty and attachment to his past. 

“It would have really hurt me to see them like that,” Bruce admits, unable to comprehend how he might have further splintered his psyche. He cannot imagine his parents as corpses just as he cannot imagine what seeing them might do to him. 

“We got you out,” Jeremiah assures soothingly, fingers flexing beneath his hold.

“You put up quite the fight though,” Jerome says with pride, tonguing the split in his lip, still oozing and bright.

“I hurt you.” Bruce winces through his first pang of guilt. He goes to sit up and Jeremiah lets him, hands falling away.

“Lucky punch,” Jerome scoffs with a wink, though Bruce can see how much he’s rattled them both with his failed plan. They still brace themselves as if they expect him to fight or bolt. Knees bent, hands a little too open, eyes fixed on him.

“Why did I go to my parents’ graves?” Desire and motivation finally find perches in him again. He gazes between the two halves of his heart and wants with great, growing need to put them at ease. Wants to smooth the frowns from their faces and warm the frost from their eyes. “Did I… say anything?”

“You wanted back to them, Bruce,” Jeremiah says. “Wanted their bones, if that was the least you could have.”

A strong hand runs down the curve of his back, and Jerome’s voice is just as steady. “You wanted us to be a family. The, uh… five of us.”

Bruce scowls, humiliated and uncomfortable by his own subconscious compulsions. Even out of his mind, he was still trying to fit into the world. To form his own family, even if he had to dig them up.

“Not much of a stretch. Nobody ever stays dead in Gotham,” Bruce tries to joke as he rubs his aching hands, feeling grit and stone beneath his fingernails. 

The touch at his back gives an amused little trill. “You said that, too.”

“Well…” Through the emptiness and desire to soothe, Bruce feels a deep surge of gratitude. “Thank you both for finding me and patching me up. I’m sorry to have put you through that.”

Jerome answers immediately, as if on cue. “Don’t be. Remember when I came back to life? That was just about as insane as I’ve ever felt, and all I wanted to do was get my grubby paws all over you. And not in a fun way. Nothin’ like now.” Moving with slow, easily-controlled grace, Jerome kisses Bruce’s cheek softly. His free hand rises to settle against his neck, thumbing at his jawline. Jerome kisses Bruce’s face and keeps kissing him, gentle, delicate, sweet.

Just as when he had awoken and demanded Jeremiah’s mouth, Bruce aches for Jerome. For his affection, his attention, his touch. He wants them to prove, after everything, that he is still desirable. Still worth keeping.

Want digs its sharp hooks into his skin as Jerome’s hand slides down his chest, yet he still recognizes the affection for what it is. A distraction. Cleverly-disguised and ever easy to fall into. And still, Bruce knows him. Knows Jerome’s tactics and motivations enough to recognize them in action. Knows that there must be more to Jeremiah’s sudden, tactical silence. 

“What else?” Bruce demands, though there is no bite to his tone. “There’s more. Just tell me, please.”

“So polite,” Jerome murmurs, pressing a lingering kiss to Bruce’s throat.

A hand grazes just beneath Bruce’s chin, and he can feel in Jeremiah’s touch that he had been correct - that the affection, however desired and reciprocated, had been a distraction seen through. The touch is fond, lingering, and in it Bruce feels the wonder in Jeremiah of being understood so wholly. “Bruce, we were very touched by your… outburst.”

Again, Jerome insists, “I wanted to kill. Even then, all you wanted was a family. All you wanted was love. So many people lose their hearts when they go crazy, ‘cause there’s not much room for anything else. But not you.”

“Actually,” Bruce cuts in. “I think all that’s left is for you two. I think when I went to the mausoleum, I… realized that.” 

A flash of memory hits him, bright and vivid as a jewel. He remembers his bloody fingers scrabbling at worn marble. Remembers his body straining as he skewed the heavy stone lid, just enough to peer inside. He remembers seeing his father’s hand, shrunken and grey. Remembers the spark of gold that was his wedding band. Seeing even this shred of his father’s decomposing body had fractured something in him, right beneath the breastbone. Something that ached and ached then, but not now. 

His frantic need to be reunited with his parents, even long dead, and bring them back to Jeremiah and Jerome had vanished then. In his memory, he stares at his father’s skeletal grip for as long as he can manage, before sliding the lid back into place. After that, there is nothing. Only blankness, blackness. A void in memory so deep it swallows itself.

“All you wanted was a family,” Jeremiah murmurs, reverent, touched, while Jerome nods with reflected emotion, saying, “We’re here for you still, baby. We’re so here…”

They dogpile Bruce, hauling his weight around. Startled laughter peals from his throat as they wrestle and thrash. They fight without real violence, twisting and pushing and pinning one another in tangles of limbs, continuously giving. Play fighting, even as strange as he feels, makes Bruce feel gradually more human. Their laughter and roughhousing echoes out his bedroom door and throughout the empty manor, disturbing its long held serenity.

“You put up such a fight, I tell ya!” Jerome shouts with a grunt as he shoves himself free from Bruce’s headlock.

“You looked like a god,” Jeremiah pants. His hair is wild with motion and a button has popped free from his velveteen jacket, but he’s grinning wider than anytime in Bruce’s recent memory. “Like stone. You were so beautiful and so unmovable.”

As Bruce rolls around the room, tossing pillows and pinching skin and laughing so loudly his ears ring, in the back of his mind, he thinks of his dead parents. Of their soft bodies and stone caskets, of the Manor and his hereditary duty to it. Of Alfred. 

He feels absolutely nothing.

They laugh until they’re exhausted. Until Bruce stops thrashing. Then they lie together on the floor, catching their breath. Content silence overtakes the room through their panting. Most of the aggressive, nervous tension has left Bruce. What remains is a stillness so deep it feels natural. 

_ This is how it’s supposed to be,  _ Bruce thinks with a flush of depthless relief.  _ And how it’ll be forever. _

Gratitude wells inside of him so fiercely his breath catches. Jeremiah’s head jolts where it rests against his chest. Wordlessly, he aims his chin up, catching Bruce’s eye, a question on his face. 

“I was just thinking about...” Bruce begins, voice soft as the bedsheets, soft as Jerome’s fingers in his hair. “About how grateful I am that we did this. That you two would let me… join you. Like this. In...In love. In insanity.”

“You’re so very welcome, Bruce,” Jeremiah responds, reverent, devout.

“No one but you,” Jerome echoes, voice soft from where he has curled like a cat into Bruce’s side. “No one could ever come close. You deserve every loose screw.”

Even though he cannot see them, Bruce can sense the moment Jerome and Jeremiah meet eyes. Another idea passes between them, so heavy and electric he imagines he can feel it buzz along his skin.

“Should we ask him now, brother-mine?” Jerome asks for his sake, though they have obviously already made up their minds.

“Ask me what?”

“One more surprise, Bruce.” Jeremiah rises first. When Bruce meets his eye, he sees that same grin grow wider, more affectionate. A carpet burn streaks his chin and two more buttons have popped free from his jacket, though he does not seem to care. Barely-suppressed excitement rings in his voice, that same passion that had enchanted Bruce so long ago when they had first met.

“You have already allowed us to change you to be more like us. More included and whole.” Bruce watches as Jeremiah disappears for a moment into his bathroom, returning with a steel box, long and narrow as his forearm. He and Jerome rise to sitting positions in unison as Jeremiah kneels, placing the box at Bruce’s feet. Inside, he sees a handful of glass bottles, glowing faintly. There are three bottles of white liquid, pale and luminous as pearl. Beside them rest two smaller bottles, one violent red, and the other a charged, acidic green. Two sets of thick leather gloves keep them from clattering together. Fresh paint brushes with various tips rest at the very end, waiting and ready.

“My brute of a brother changed your mind,” Jeremiah murmurs. He reaches down to uncap a bottle of white, which releases a haze of hot, caustic chemicals into the air. Seeing them, Bruce knows what is coming - can feel it building inevitably in his future, physical and unshakeable as Jerome’s soothing touch as his back or the weight of these two men in his heart. Without any doubt, Bruce knows that if he unwrapped his damaged finger and dipped it into the pot of pale dye, it would rise singed and white as Jeremiah’s skin. 

With the ease of a man completely in control, Jeremiah takes a paint brush with a very fine tip, dips it into the pot of white, and holds it between them. Bruce can hear it fizzling, reacting, dyeing even the fibers of the brush. 

“Jerome changed your whole mind, Bruce,” he murmurs, and Bruce feels his will bending before he is even asked. “Would you allow me the great honor of changing your body?”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I've updated the chapter count in addition to updating. For now, we have one more to go. 
> 
> Also, for those who might have recognized it, Jeremiah's line, "You wanted back to them, Bruce. Wanted their bones, if that was the least you could have," was a line inspired by Plath's poem Daddy. 
> 
> Thank you for all the love. Please let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

*

Of course, Bruce agrees.

Even before the promise of pain. And even after, too.

“Anything,” Bruce says, eyes nearly fluttering with blissful, encompassing love as they lead him to the bathroom. “Anything to be closer.”

“And that’s exactly why we love you so much, Bruce.” Jeremiah says, giving into an obviously long-withheld temptation and kissing Bruce forcefully. Even from the strength of the kiss, from how closely Jeremiah presses their bodies and how strongly his hands clench his waist, Bruce knows he is grateful. He wonders if there would ever be a situation where he would not bend to both of them. One where he would refuse to be more unified - body and mind and soul. He cannot even imagine it.

Bruce allowed Jerome to fracture his mind. It is only fair he allows Jeremiah to paint his body.

"Where would you like me?" Bruce murmurs against Jeremiah's lips. "How should we start?"

"I'd  _ like _ you on your knees," hisses Jerome, coming up behind Bruce to press their bodies together with the same forceful fervor as his brother. "But we'll get to that after your fry and dye, won’t we, sweetheart?"

"Yes," Bruce murmurs, a little breathless. Trapped bodily between the Valeska twins is one of his favorite places to be, and now that he finds himself pinned, Bruce feels reluctant to leave, even for Jeremiah's acidic greasepaint hissing so prettily on the countertop. "As soon as possible. Sooner. Anytime. Now?"

They both chuckle at that, laughter buzzing where their bodies meet. 

"I'd like you all dolled up for me first," Jeremiah murmurs. He presses one last lingering kiss to Bruce's mouth before turning away.

Already, Bruce can see that they have come prepared. A tall wooden stool sits in the center of his bathroom, just beneath a bright overhead light. A black tarp lies flat on the floor, pinned in place by the stool. Several steel combs and hairbrushes rest on one of the closest countertops, and beyond them Bruce can see that they have moved one of the large, nearly floor-length mirrors from his parents' former bathroom into his. It is framed in intricate wooden carvings and foiled with silver flecks so bright they sparkle. 

Several clicks of glass on glass echo in the space. Jerome hums nonsense tunes at Bruce's back, fluffing his hair playfully while Jeremiah prepares. After several moments, Jeremiah turns to face them, holding a bottle of the green dye in his hands.

"As you might have guessed, darling," he begins, coming so close Bruce can hear the acid fizz. "These are modified grease paints designed to dye your skin much like mine. With me, my brother was not so kind as to remove the physical consequences to his insanity spray like he was with you. These…"

He raises his gloved fist where the bottles of red and green glimmer side by side. "These will fix that.”

Jeremiah gestures and Bruce sits obediently in the stool. He allows Jerome to unbutton his sleeping shirt, picking at each one expertly. Even this small act, so heavily repeated in the past, makes Bruce’s chest feel tight with affection and wanting. Again, he is almost distracted by desire. His hands itch with emptiness. He has just started to tangle his fingers with Jerome’s, wanting them in his mouth and on his tongue and as far back into his throat as the other man could reach, when Jeremiah interrupts, yet again, with grace.

“There are two versions of white,” he begins knowingly, taking Bruce by the hands and pressing two pale bottles into his palms. “The first would take to your skin much like mine, dyeing every freckle, mole, and scar the palest white, but translucent and fine.”

Bruce twists them, watching the liquid shimmer. One is very bright and coats the glass thickly when tilted. The other moves smooth as water, glimmering and pearlescent.

“You won't look bleached or papery or…  _ decorated  _ as much as I might. The - ”

“You look beautiful,” Bruce interjects, staring into Jeremiah’s eyes with every ounce of sincerity he has. It seems, then, that he notices a new aspect of his insanity - not only did his desire seem heightened, yet now, too, did his heart and its bittersweet hopes.

Tears well in his eyes before Bruce can even begin to explain them. “Jeremiah, I don’t want you to feel like that. I  _ don’t  _ \- you’re so - ”

Beside them, Jerome starts laughing and Jeremiah is looking at him with a sweet mix of flustered embarrassment and understanding. 

“ _ Man _ , you’re starting to make me think I should get in on this dye job,” Jerome says with exasperated fondness. “If you really like his looks so much.”

“ _ Jerome _ ,” Bruce starts, feeling a traitorous hitch to his voice even as he scrubs the sudden tears from his face. “You too. You’re both so - so - ”

Jeremiah, merciful, interrupts him. “Bruce, sweetheart, thank you. As always, your sentiment baffles and thrills me. Now. This second bottle is much like my skin. Flat white. No nuance. I won’t be using it on you immediately, if at all. This will be for… later.”

He plucks the bottles from Bruce’s hands, replacing them with the final two colors. “The green, if you'd like, would be applied to your hair. Though only in the brightest light would it be visible. I don't want to overshadow these beautiful black curls.”

“I wouldn’t stand for that,” Jerome interrupts, snickering.

“But I would like for you and I to share that detail, however small. Then, lastly. The lips. With this red you’d look so raw from kissing. So lovely. Like an angel. A killer. A - ”

“A stunner.” Jerome agrees.

“Oh,  _ Bruce _ .” Some of Jeremiah’s careful, scientific restraint breaks at the affectionate sound of his name. “What do you say?”

“Yes.” Usually with a decision so monumental and everlasting, Bruce knows he would make space for consideration. For careful pros and cons, if time or safety weren’t pressing concerns. Now, however, his decision comes so easily it might feel foreign or suspicious if he found it in himself to care. With Jerome and Jeremiah standing before him, waiting anxiously and desperately for an affirmative, the answer seems already made for him. As exactly with Jerome’s spray, Bruce feels that any time for deliberation or doubt was time wasted. “I say yes.”

“You’re not opposed to any of it?” Jeremiah demands, though excited wonder has begun bleeding into his voice. “You’ll take every color?”

“Every color,” Bruce says with a steady nod, shaking off the dregs of his past that compel him to offer a handshake as if sealing a deal. 

“Perfect.  _ Perfect _ ,” Jeremiah spits, already in a flurry of preparation, and Bruce isn’t sure if he means Bruce himself or his decision. His back turned, a bottle of white is dumped into a flat steel tray with a hiss. “Strip him, Jerome.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Jerome says without feeling as he turns to Bruce with a greedy, lecherous grin. Although he might have expected a more thorough undressing, Jerome surprises him by starting with his fingers.

The bandages they wrapped him in are still firmly in place, if not a little bloody. They were very obviously applied with great patience and care, and Jerome devotes the same consideration in taking the bandages off as he must have putting them on. He carefully picks at the tip of the wrapping and unwinds it slowly, murmuring, “Bet these will be sore for awhile. You really mangled ‘em, honey-heart babydoll love-of-my-life. Cracked them to bits with that madman strength of yours. I’m still a little impressed, if we’re being honest…”

His fingers come into focus with each orbiting of the bandage. They’re flaking with dried blood and even exposure to the air causes his fingertips to throb, low and dull like any long held wound. Just as he had been warned, his fingernails are torn and splitting. Little flecks of stone still remained in difficult spots and Bruce suddenly empathized with whichever one of them had to remove the easiest of the stones in the first place.

Once every bloody bandage has unraveled to the floor, Bruce tests his limits stretching his fingers while Jerome undresses him. None are broken, though they ache as though they should be. He makes careful work of prodding each one, rolling his knuckles and testing how much pressure each fingertip might be able to take. By the time he is done and satisfied that there would be no lasting damage, he is mostly naked, sitting only in boxers as Jerome kicks away the remnants of his clothing.

Jeremiah steps forward, handing Jerome a pair of black leather gloves. They slip them on with mirrored, eager grins as Bruce squirms in his seat.

“These gloves are of my own design, made to protect us from your pretty paints. No need to worry about us while we’re focusing on you. Jerome, I think, will start on your hair while I dye your skin. How does that sound, Bruce?” Jeremiah asks, though he does not wait for an answer before handing Jerome a steel container and a long metal comb with deeply gapping teeth.

“Perfect,” Bruce echoes. A sudden shiver races up his body as Jerome steps close behind him and Jeremiah kneels at his feet.

“This will sting. No doubt about that.” A bitterly amused smile passes over Jeremiah’s face as he dips a wide brush into the opalescent paint between his knees. “Let me know if it’s too much.”

“Will do,” Bruce says. “Now get on with it.”

Jerome’s hand is the first sensation he feels, steady on his shoulder as the comb is run through his hair. Even with the first few swipes, Bruce feels nothing, though he can hear it - a soft hiss growing louder with every drag. 

His knees are nudged suddenly apart and Jeremiah stands, holding his tools, his eyes heavy on Bruce’s face. There is no preamble, no warning. He simply dips the brush and brings it very softly to Bruce’s face. The brush lands right at the center of his forehead, though Bruce hardly notices as heat crawls over his skin.

“How does it feel?” Jeremiah asks, drawing the brush away, his eyes on only the dye. 

“It feels like…” Bruce ponders the peculiar tightness to his skin, the ache. “Almost like sunburn. Very manageable. Is it spreading?”

“Yes.” Again the brush is dipped, pulled away wet and glimmering, and painted in a steady stripe onto Bruce’s cheek. “The pigment spreads and blends into itself. It won’t be much time at all until you’re stained just like me.”

As the brush continues its careful prodding over his face, down his neck, and across his shoulders, he begins to feel the same stinging at the very top of his head.

“Is it working, Jerome?” Bruce asks, surprised to hear himself slightly breathless.

“Of course it’s working. It’s fizzing right into that brain of yours.” Jerome snickers softly, “You’re gonna be  _ thinking  _ green.”

“Your face is finished,” Jeremiah cuts in before Bruce can start to worry over the state of his hair, passing him a handheld mirror. Bruce examines his face, finding it very close to how it had been. Now, however, his complexion has smoothed, becoming evenly pale and fine. Every little blotch of color is gone, every blemish or scar or faint freckle. Although Bruce knew this would happen, it is still surprising to see. Jeremiah’s inventions are always flawless and his dye, evidently, is no exception.

“I look so clean,” is the first response he can think to give, causing Jerome to laugh. “I mean, it looks wonderful. Very smooth, and - I look just like you.”

Here, he gazes into Jeremiah’s face very purposefully with every speck of awe and gratitude and love he has. “I love it, Jeremiah. Thank you.”

“Anything for you, Bruce.” 

The moment passes, and with a steadying nod, Jeremiah continues pressing the brush into his skin, moving dutifully across his body. Bruce presses his fingertips against his face, feeling the twin pains of his shredded fingernails and the tender sting of his acid-dyed face. Situated so closely between the Valeska’s - with their eyes on him and their attention fully his as they hurt him so gently - has Bruce’s breathing sinking shallowly as heat begins to pool low in his stomach.

With Jerome’s gloved fingers skimming through his hair and Jeremiah’s breath on his bare thighs, Bruce feels his cock twitch and begin to swell. He has been rebuffed too many times already, and the desire is not as easy to will away as before.

Arousal surges in him with the insistence of a thing long neglected.

“Getting a little worked up are we?” Jerome picks off a glove with his teeth and lets it fall to the floor with a smack. His bare hand, broad, flat, runs over Bruce’s shoulder and down the slope of his chest. Excitement locks Bruce’s muscles, makes his stomach start to quiver. “Does this excite you, Bruce? Becoming even closer to us?” 

With a deep exhale, Bruce realizes his patience has thinned - controlling his sexual urges feels far more difficult than it had ever been before, even when he was younger and filled to the brim with fresh hormones and budding puberty. Desperate, he digs his broken fingernails into the seat of the stool. “Yes.  _ That _ . And the pain.”

“Lucky for you, I’m all done up here.” Jerome slips away. Already anticipating his next move, Jeremiah steps away with a smirk and Jerome takes his place kneeling between Bruce’s legs. Although Jeremiah cradles his forearm in his grip and begins to dab the dye into his soft spots - between his fingers, his wrist, the crook of his elbow - Bruce hardly feels the prickling sting of it as Jerome’s hands glide down his abdomen to tease the elastic of his shorts.

“Even crazy, you still love a little bit of pain, don’t you, lovebug?” Jerome murmurs, voice dripping devotion. “I wonder if you’ll be able to handle even more… What do you think?”

“Not sure,” Bruce says, apparently unable to form full length sentences over the crowning force of his want. He would be embarrassed, he’s sure, if he had the ability to care.

“We’ll see, won’t we, Jeremiah?” Jerome asks, eyes downcast, pretty lashes fanning across his cheeks as he pets Bruce through his boxers. Beside him, Jeremiah gives a hum of agreement, a smile on his face.

“Pretty boy...” Jerome kisses both of Bruce’s thighs before reaching up and tugging his boxers down. He shifts atop the stool, allowing them to fall to his feet, where Jerome yanks them off and tosses them away without looking. 

The cool air feels cold on his cock, blushing with blood and jutting towards his navel. “This probably isn’t - ” Jerome’s knuckles brush the underside of his cock softly as Jeremiah presses the fizzing brush to the very center of his chest. With a distracted gasp, he watches the pigment sink and spread over his heart like creeping frost. “Isn’t the best time? Jeremiah?”

“Sit still, Bruce, and you can enjoy yourself,” the other man says as he continues to make his way around Bruce’s body, jabbing the brush more forcefully than before at his ribcage, his shoulder blades, his spine. The sting is beautiful, biting, and makes it all the better when Jerome finally takes him into his mouth.

“ _ Oh _ ,” Bruce gasps immediately, “Oh, Jerome. God.  _ God _ .”

He isn’t sure if it’s the situation, the intimacy, or the simple amount of times he has banked his frustration that makes Jerome’s mouth so sick and twistedly perfect. When he tangles a fist in Jerome’s hair, his hand is white as linen against the shock of red. Like blood and milk, Bruce thinks, mind growing dim with pleasure-pain. When he lets his eyes go hazy, they blend together - pink as dawn, pink as Jerome’s flushed face, pink as the inside of his mouth as he tongues the head of Bruce’s cock.

He can’t think, he can’t  _ think  _ -

And still Jeremiah is painting his navel, his hips, his thighs. A fresh part of him is always stinging, always prickling just a bit too sharply for relaxation, and the pain of his scalp has Bruce panting in his seat, feeling far closer to orgasm than he wants. 

“Jerome, if you keep up like that,” Bruce starts, voice high and thin. The remainder of his warning is promptly scattered as Jerome swallows him completely, his nose brushing Bruce’s skin. His throat constricts once, closing around Bruce’s cock so hot and wet and heavenly, he sways. Jeremiah’s brush skims between his toes, up the flats of his feet, his calves, circling his knees.

“Give him a break, Jerome,” Jeremiah mutters. “Don’t want to finish him off too quickly.”

Jerome rolls his eyes at the both of them, pulling away slowly, proving it was absolutely the last thing he wanted to be doing. His hands replace his mouth, though they’re so cold from bracing himself against the tiled floor, Bruce yelps.

“ _ Ugh _ ," Bruce hisses eventually. “You're too good at that. I thought I was going to pass out.”

“I’m not done yet,” Jerome says, a defensive bite to his tone. “Get to it, Jeremiah.”

Before Bruce can ask what he means, Jeremiah leans over his lap and presses the gleaming brush right to the base of his cock. The pain is so immediate, so overwhelming, he cannot bite back a shriek. Before he blinks, Jerome’s mouth is back on him, sucking him so gently as color races up the length of his cock and disappears behind Jerome’s lips.

“You!” Bruce sputters, offended and miserably aroused. “You could have warned me!”

“No need,” Jeremiah says. With the same unrelenting control, he fists a hand into the back of Bruce’s head so forcefully his glove squelches. A low, breathless moan escapes Bruce’s throat as his head is snapped back. A very small brush rests in Jeremiah’s free hand hovering before his eyes, the tip wet and deeply red. “Sit still now, Bruce. It would be a crime to mess up such a pretty pout, don’t you think?”

Hands trembling with force, Bruce grips the stool as Jerome sucks him off (so good and right and hot, he could scream - ) while Jeremiah fists his hair and paints his mouth. Mouth open, jaw hinging, Bruce cannot silence himself. Every ragged breath and moan and gasp spills from him.

“So good,” Jeremiah praises, still clinically serious as he paints the very corners of Bruce’s lips. “So pretty. So patient. So deeply, desperately loved.”

Just from breathing, Bruce can taste the metallic sting of blood trickling onto his tongue. Blisters prickle and swell at the corners of his mouth, and he’s sure he’ll be covered in them all over his body, tiny as gooseflesh. 

Just as he has that thought, Jerome again demands his attention, using his fingernails to scrape paths down Bruce’s hips. He shouts, the sound garbled, and Jeremiah reprimands him though Bruce has no idea what he says.

The searing pain at his hips and the slick rhythm of Jerome’s mouth and the fist in his hair send Bruce’s budding orgasm cresting, coiling in the bottom of his belly. 

Jerome pulls away just as Jeremiah coaxes him to his feet and Bruce groans in frustration yet again. The soles of his bare feet sting as he rises. From the floor, Jerome is looking up at him with amusement in his eyes, his mouth puffy and gleaming as it forms a low wolf whistle. Without asking, Jerome surges to his feet, kissing Bruce full on the mouth as Jeremiah dyes the back half of his body.

Their kiss is messy with passion. Bruce, frustrated beyond measure, ruts between their bellies while Jerome snickers into his open mouth. Jerome’s hands land at his hips, shoving him backwards until he stands with his feet on either side of the stool, legs spread. Jeremiah’s fingers have wandered to his tailbone, probing gently. There is no scratch and bristle of a brush head, only Jeremiah’s gloved finger dripping paint.

Two pairs of hands tangle at his hips as Jeremiah spreads him open, surely watching the dye sinking against his most intimate parts. After several moments, he feels a soft mouth pressing kisses low against his spine. There comes a musical noise, a chime of glass on glass, and from the corner of his eye, he sees Jeremiah pass Jerome the second bottle of white. 

“Can I mark you, Bruce?”

Frustration boils in him yet again, and he nods down to Jerome without truly knowing what he means. Any mark he’ll take, as long as it brings them closer (or, he thinks, if it’ll get his mouth back on him.)

Very carefully, Jerome tips the bottle into the palm of his hand. Bruce watches it collect against the black latex of his glove, white as chalk. He briefly presses his hands together as if in prayer, and when they peel apart, Bruce can see a flat print on the glove, so perfect it shows even his lifelines, his callouses.

Jerome’s eyes flit over his body, still trembling with tension. He reaches up slowly, as if about to cradle his jaw, and despite the paint on his hand, Bruce does not hesitate. He would lean into the touch, would take Jerome’s mark on his cheek if it was what he wanted - yet his hand stops short. It comes down onto the side of Bruce’s neck, palm on his jugular, thumb under his chin, fingers nearly brushing his spine. Upon contact, it sears his skin audibly, a sick sizzling, and the pain is so intense it takes him fully by surprise.

By the time he lets out a groan through clenched teeth, Jerome has pulled his hand away, peeled off his gloves, and presented the mirror. When Bruce snatches it away, he sees the perfect handprint right at the juncture of his neck, snowy white against the parchment paleness of his skin.

It is beautiful in a wretched way. A mark of possession and domination. He loves it more than words, more than his loose screws and the dye in his hair, he loves this spot of Jerome on him, more permanent than ink or scar.

“You too, Jeremiah,” Bruce begs before he has fully caught his breath. “Please? Mark me too?”

“One moment, darling.”

Although he cannot see the man behind him, he can hear him switching out his own bottles and snapping his gloves tight as they’ll go. Jerome makes quick work of returning to his knees, kissing the scratches on Bruce’s hips.

“Don’t tease me,” Bruce murmurs, fisting Jerome’s hair despite his shattered fingernails. “Just finish me off. I took your mark, Jerome, please please - ”

Without another word, Jerome takes his cock back into his mouth and it is such a relief Bruce feels as if he could cry. There is no teasing now, no tactics or show, just Jerome bobbing his head so prettily, his eyes on Bruce’s, his hands on his cock when his mouth pulls away. His orgasm, long neglected, crests in him again only after a few seconds. Bruce feels his muscles coiling, his stomach quivering, his red mouth hanging open with every breath. He nearly forgets where he is and what he is anticipating before he feels Jeremiah loom over his back and sees his glove gone white as frost.

“I’ve always wanted to burn you alive like this,” he whispers, and presses his hand low on Bruce’s navel. He comes so suddenly and forcefully it is nearly disorienting. With a stuttering moan, his legs give out and Bruce crashes back into the stool, Jerome dutifully following. It is the sweetest, strongest orgasm he has had in recent memory - dizzying and draining enough he feels his legs going numb.

It takes him a long while to recover but when he does, Jeremiah and Jerome are standing before him, evaluating him, as Bruce runs his hands over his trembling body. His heartbeat throbs in every extremity, even behind his eyes, even in his teeth. He is so exhausted he can hardly force himself to speak. “How do I look?”

“Perfect,” Jerome spits.

“Better than I ever could have imagined.” Jeremiah murmurs, voice thick with emotion. He clears his throat, blinking hard.

Bruce smiles and tries to take a step towards them but one knee buckles and he stumbles. As Jeremiah and Jerome hurry to him, arms open, Bruce considers looking into the large mirror they had dragged in. In his mind’s eye he sees himself glowing neon like a costume. That, or exactly as he had been, unchanged, hardly anything different. Before he can make his choice, there are arms around him, beneath him. 

Jerome and Jeremiah are murmuring sweet nothings, voices overlapping in a vague, comforting blend. They lead him away from the bathroom and into his bedroom, and Bruce is grateful to leave the mirror behind - they love him and that is all that matters. They love his fractured mind and his acid-burnt body and everything else, every other bit of him that reflects or opposes them.

“We love you, Bruce,” Jeremiah murmurs as they lead him to bed. The sheets feel itchy and strange against his sore skin, but Bruce relaxes anyway, sinking into sleep as quickly and effortlessly as falling.

“I know,” Bruce breathes with a wry little smile. “Of course I know.”

In the morning, he thinks, imagining Gotham glinting with sunlight and dew. In the morning, they will rise together, unified more wholly than ever before - unstoppable and free.

*


End file.
